Microsoft officially removed the VBScript language from future versions of Windows

Back in May this year, Microsoft released Windows 11 build 25309 to the Windows Insider user community on Dev Channel. Besides the new features included, there is also a very notable change, which is the appearance of the option to uninstall VBScript (Visual Basic Script), a classic language that Microsoft has created many years ago. decade ago.

This small detail in the Windows 11 Dev Channel build clearly hinted that Microsoft had long intended to end support for VBScript in the near future. This week, the Redmond company finally officially confirmed that VBScript will no longer be part of future Windows releases.

In the announcement page for features that are no longer supported, the company stated:

VBScript will only be available as an on-demand feature before being discontinued in future Windows releases. Initially, the VBScript on-demand feature will be pre-installed to allow uninterrupted use, while you prepare for the complete discontinuation of VBScript.

In fact, Microsoft's removal of VBScript from the Windows environment is a decision that has been predicted for a long time. VBScript (short for Visual Basic Script Edition) is a scripting language interpreted by Microsoft's Windows Script Host. VBScript first appeared in 1996, and was developed as an easy-to-use language. VBScript was also implemented in early versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

However, over time, VBScript has gradually become outdated, and is even abused to distribute malware. Over the years, Microsoft has gradually phased out the use of this language in its products. VBScript is not used at all in the new Edge browser, and in 2017, the company also removed VBScript by default in IE 10 for Windows 10.

In 2019, Microsoft continued to make the move to disable VBScript in the final version of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

The latest move mentioned above aims to set a schedule for completely removing VBScript from future versions of Windows, as a final nail in the 'coffin' for this once popular language.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 22 October 2023